But even Gross does not claim that he knows exactly what happened and Gross explicitly denies that he claims to have written a historical account. And Gross’s account is disputed, by (notoriously anti-semitic) National Holocaust Nuseum historians. Notoriously anti-semitic journals pointed out problems in his work.

But leave it to FR to reduce even Gross’s laudable question-raising to sheer, naked Catholic-bashing.

From another notoriously anti-semitic source: Wikipedia citing a leading Holocaust historian:

Alexander B. Rossino, a research historian at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. wrote: “while Neighbors contributed to an ongoing re-examination of the history of the Holocaust in Poland, Gross’ failure to examine German documentary sources fundamentally flawed his depiction of the events. The result was a skewed history that did not investigate SS operations in the region or German interaction with the Polish population.”[30]

They always gave everyone a chance to escape death. That was part of the policy. It was far more effective a way to demoralize and defeat Christianity by threatening people into recanting than by actually killing them.

The scene where the martyr is given a half-dozen chances to escape death merely by renouncing Christ is standard. And it makes perfect sense from the standpoint of the persecutor.

It is also true that many early martyr accounts probably contain some exaggeration. But hagiologers for centuries have been able to sift the exaggeration from the historical foundation so a breathless claim that only now do we realize it was all exaggerated is
well
an
exaggeration that has a kernel of truth in it.

If she truly claims only a handful of accounts are reasonably accurate, then that seems exaggerated debunking.

On the other hand,
I would not trust this reporting of what she claims not to be itself exaggerated. Does SHE really say only a handful or is that the breathless exaggeration of this reporter???

I’m tired of everyone exaggerating everything, including conservatives exaggerating the sins of people like Candida Moss. I don’t mind faulting her where faulting is due. But people need to fight fair and I’m not convinced this breathless report of the eeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiillllllllll Candida Moss book isn’t just
a
tad
exaggerated.

Yes, that reminds me—Radner’s criticism was not so much that she’s wrong about the first 300 years—a myth about that does exist for a lot of people. Where she’s wrong, he says, is to assume that Christians’s present claims about being persecuted are largely propaganda and exaggeration.

That strikes me as legitimate critique. But debunking does need to be done on the first 300 years. It’s too bad she didn’t leave it at that.

It is true that most people have an exaggerated notion about the first 3 centuries. Persecution was horrific for 75 years from 250-325. Even then there were lulls. Before 250 AD it was sporadic. Christianity was illegal but Christians were not systematically sought out. Before 250, most persecution resulted from mob violence, ginned up animosities in a given city. (That’s the way it will be here too.)

All that is accurate history. Those who had the idea of constant, unrelenting persecution until Constantine the Great do need to have their myth debunked.

That martyr stories get inflated and are used for propaganda is also obvious. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is Protestant propaganda. The Anabaptists had their Martyrs’ Mirror.

Some reviewers think Moss goes further than debunking the common myth of unrelenting persecution. She may have invented a counter-myth, exaggerating the degree of propagandistic exaggeration by Christians. I haven’t read the book. I don’t think it deserves the kind of breathless condemnation it’s getting from Christian circles but it probably deserves scholarly critique.

Ephraim Radner’s scathing review in First Things raises some serious problems with the book, but he also may indulge in overkill.

Aliens don’t read random threads (’cept perhaps JRandomFreeper threads). Aliens are verrrrryyy sophisticated and use very sophisticated algorerhythms to decide which threads to read and which to ignore. But you can be sure that aliens read the entire thread once they decide to read any thread. It’s just the way aliens are. Sorta natural law-like, I think.